War Of Men

Arcane

Bite by bite, she ate pieces of the fish. The taste was surprisingly pleasant; she'd forgotten how much the flavour appealed to her. Despite this, she struggled to swallow it down. Years of avoiding the allergen meant the idea of it triggered a certain nausea. Still, she needed to make sure she threw some up which apparently was forbidden in fasting. The Chèr might just send her to the aedrum with hives on one of his moody days.

After breakfast, the group was sent off to religious education. The responsible priest had half a breakdown when he caught onto Merari's ignorance. The idea of having to re-teach everything was soul-crushing but Merari deviously insisted she couldn't remember anything.

'But your best friend's been an Eseterrian for a while. Surely she passed on some of my lectures to you.'

'Nah, I hate religion.'

'But you're... You're having me on, aren't you?'

Merari pulled an indifferent face. 'Well, I don't completely hate it, but I've never been particularly devout.'

Arcane had to suppress several sniggers. Merari was pretending to be dumber than she was, the girl actually had an impressively detailed memory of many myths. Arcane trusted that that would eventually come out, but until then she was also enjoying the priest's despair.

Within a few minutes of the first myth, they picked up on Arcane's hives. She excused herself from the remainder by saying she felt awful. Not long after, the vomiting started. She clutched the toilet seat as she regurgitated the fish. It served as the perfect reminder never to eat fish again. Her siblings had better be grateful.

Eventually, she crawled back into bed. Her maid, Theresa, brought her a bucket in case she threw up again. Now that she was lying there, she began to panic that she'd just incapacitated herself for the day. While her reactions hadn't been too severe in the past, she felt more nauseous than ever before. Her hives itched and it took most of her self control not to scratch at them.

The Chèr was her first visitor. He was visibly uncomfortable at the sight of her red arms and the little bit of vomit in the bucket.

'I guess you won't be doing the Primracon today?'

'I feel like trash,' Arcane moaned, even though this was her own fault.

He nodded reluctantly, then headed towards the door. There he lingered, then turned his head back to her. 'If you need anything, call.'

'What, are you offering to dab at my forehead with a damp cloth?'

'Do you think so lowly of me? Is that why you didn't tell me about Merari?'

He didn't wait for a response. Arcane's eyes rested on the doorway for a while. Had she genuinely hurt him so much with her silence? Shouldn't he understand a friend's loyalty? On further thought, Arcane wondered whether he'd ever had such a close friend. The notion was so sad, she decided she'd try to make it up to him. She'd make the Chèr smile, as impossible as it sounded.

♤ ♤ ♤

A couple of hours passed and Arcane started to recover, so she set to work. Even though she'd felt awful, the time to think meant she had gathered some ideas as to potential culprits.

One possibility was somebody with a connection to Baba Mair. The odd seer had always shown an inexplicable interest in the preservation and training of Arcane's powers. She'd been the one who had made the first brew, so couldn't she have made a second one?

Another option was one of the Leere. Since they could detect powers, they could have noticed traces on her. With the secularisation some Cineans longed for, there was a reasonable probability that one of the Leere had more liberal views. The tricky task would be probing the Leere without suspicion. Then again, all she needed was handwriting.